I am having a similar problem with 8.04 LTS. Every thread I have read says
something different, have tried a few from google searching. Still does not
play the music on Myspace profiles nor Utube videos..

You'll may want to check you sound out put. I know it sounds really stupid, but
atlas the alsa has changed. You will go forth to the ALSA mixer in terminal
mode. This if I recall right. Because I has the same problem and was easy fix.
So open up thy terminal in Appilcations >Termial and type in alsamixer. Turn up
master and the rest of the goodies options. Then reboot and the sound should be
piping through. If the red X is over the speaker double click and proceed to
adjust the out put.
 As for vids playing on Youtube. Double check to see if the restricted CODECS
are in stalled through Synaptic.
 If you seem NOT to get the ever looping at the log in splash screen. Once
again this only effects the CRT monitors and not the nice flat panels. You must
go into display and choose a higher quality. So if you have lets say set at
1024x768. You got to one up it. To lets say 1280x1024 .Despite my protest. It
is better than the every looping of hell.
 You can have better functions of the net by using Epiphany web browser stead
of Fire fox. The flash works and the games on FB are not F uped.

I've been on 8.04 LTS since April of 2008, I use it all day every day at
work and have never had any problem viewing flash content. It all "just
works" by default.

if you are having problems, make sure they are not self inflicted.

1. Adobe flash is included in the "ubuntu restricted extras" bundle. If
you installed flash by hand, please undo what you did, and install Adobe
flash using the package manager. If you have not installed the ubuntu
restricted extras bundle, that's what you need to do.

2. Make sure that adobe flash is the only flash player installed, as
installing multiple competing flash players will cause problems
including an inability to view flash content. Remove any competing
players e.g. gnash, swfdec, etc.

I tried to play a video file with totem and it said that I needed
a codecs I believe that it then loaded swfdec. I then visited a website
that had video content and it said I needed adobe flash 10 so I
installed a plugin. I can play vid files in totem but not in firefox.

You need to remove swfdec as it will clash with Adobe flash. You have to
pick one or the other, but since Adobe flash is more capable, that is
the one you'd logically choose.

Use the package manager to remove swfdec.

Back to Adobe flash, you say you "installed a plugin" but what exactly
did you do? What steps did you follow? I'm trying to ascertain whether
you just downloaded a flash tarball to your home directory, installed a
flash tarball system-wide, or installed a proper deb package.

I installed flash from the adobe website by selecting there apt option.
I have removed the swfdec but the problem still present.

Then you may have installed the swf plugin for firefox.
Type about:plugins into the address box and see if you have two versions
of flash.

I have the following from about:plugins

application/x-shockwave-flash Shockwave Flash swf Yes
application/futuresplash FutureSplash Players spl Yes

something comes to mind: are you running the 64-bit version of the OS?

I have sort of solved the problem, it is a 32
bit system.
I have managed to parse the url from the website that was causing the
problem and pasted the url of the video file into vlc and it works.

mmsh://live.camstreams.com/csMKARS?MSWMExt=.asf
but will not work embedded but that is not a problem.

Can you provide the original URL, the one that involved flash? I'd like
to verify that my computers can access it.

BTW If you can't access flash content, it sounds like you still have a
big problem. The flash part should simply work, so I'm curious about
what could be wrong.

its http://mkars.camstreams.com..............

Ah it's wanting me to go to some non-standard ports, (which are not open
here) so I'll have to wait until I get home to try it.

its one of these sites that host webcam streams that our
amateur radio club use.

I can get it OK from my computer. I didn't know that Bletchley Park had
an amateur radio club. My call is wb7ooe.

yes Bletchley Park has been the Home of the Milton Keynes Amateur
Radio Society for about 15 years ( http://mkars.org.uk ) we operate a
special event station at the week ends from the park GB2BP.
My call is G1RNZ.
Thanks for help on this, I have for the moment accepted just getting the
stream from vlc I spent far too long trying to solve this hi

73's Graham G1RNZ

I just checked the site from home where I'm running 9.10 - I use google
chrome as the default browser, so when I clicked on the link it opened
the site in chrome and I could see the streaming videos, no problem. I
pasted the URL into firefox-3.6 as well and it also worked well in that
browser.

I'm not sure what's going on with your system, but if I were you, I'd
create another user account and test that site with the new, virgin
account to see if it's something with your personal settings or config
files in your account that are affecting the behaviour.

please install gstreams codec
and run with vlc

That all "just works" by default.

if you are having problems, make sure they are not self inflicted.

1. Adobe flash is included in the "ubuntu restricted extras" bundle, but
you say that you installed flash "as a firefox plugin" rather than using
the ubuntu provided package. Please describe what actions you took to
install it, and then we can tell you how to reverse the process.

2. Make sure that adobe flash is the only flash player installed, as
installing multiple competing flash players will cause problems
including an inability to view flash content. Remove any competing
players e.g. gnash, swfdec, etc.

What I had to do was uninstall gnash from
synaptic, swfdec from synaptic, and shockwave flash from firefox plugins...
now it works like a charm.